


on the state of things

by Anonymous



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: American History, American Politics, Antisemitism, Child Death, Child Neglect, Comics/Movie Crossover, Current Events, Death, Diabetic Sarah Rogers, Gen, Gun Violence, Headcanon, Historical References, Homophobia, Irish Sarah Rogers, Islamophobia, Jewish Bucky Barnes, No Death Shown, Politics, Racism, References to Real People, Sexism, Speeches, Steve Rogers is Not a Nazi, Stream of Consciousness, Xenophobia, fr backstory, just some tho, kinda a character study, only talkin abt it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-24
Updated: 2019-08-24
Packaged: 2020-09-25 03:49:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20370193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: [VIDEO ID: Steve Rogers (Captain America) sits in his room at home. He's wearing a plain grey t-shirt and is visible only from the chest up. The shield is leaning against his bed in the background. He gives a speech about the current social and political climate. END ID]Transcription of speech below;





	on the state of things

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [this tweet](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/511786) by David Slack. 

_STEVE ROGERS: Before I became Captain America, I was asked an important question by Doctor Abraham Erskine. He looked at me, five-foot-four and skinnier than anyone has any right to be, and asked, "Do you want to kill Nazis?" I didn't give him a straight answer. All I said was "I don't like bullies. I don't care where they're from." And I meant it. But now the bullies are home-grown, and they're using my name, my face, my legacy, to further their agendas._

_I was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, by a drunk father and one of the strongest women I've ever known. They were both from Ireland, which means that I'm a first-generation immigrant. English isn't even my first language; it's Irish, because that's what my mother taught me. We used to use it when it was just the three of us._

_My best friend growing up, James Buchanan Barnes, is Jewish. He'd get into trouble with his ma when she found out he was lying about keeping kosher. I went to his bar mitzvah when he turned thirteen. I was only eleven at the time, and my ma and I were dirt poor, but I managed to round up eighteen cents for him. It'd only be about two and a half bucks today, but he gave me a huge hug and almost cracked one of my ribs. We had no idea that in half a year, the Nazi party would become the second largest in Germany._

_Bucky never wanted to go to war. He was twenty-six, an orphan, had three younger siblings, and the oldest, Rebecca, was only seventeen. But he went. And I followed him. _ _We didn't know when we were shipped off to Europe about the terrible things that were happening. We just knew that Germany was going against the Treaty of Versailles. We didn't even really know what that meant — something about starting a draft, and the Rhine, and Austria. But Bucky was told to fight, so that's what he did, and eventually I got in and started fighting along with him. And we didn't get back for seventy years, when the actions of the Nazis were well known, but somehow unspeakable. _

_I can't speak for Bucky, but here are the facts; he was forced to serve Hydra; the rogue science division of the Nazi party. They didn't see him as human. They only saw him as a weapon. Part of me can't help but wonder, if his tags didn't have that "H" they hated so much in the lower right, if they might've treated him differently. I asked him once, and he just gave me this look, as if to say "pal, I have enough to worry about," and then he started laughing. Told me that Zola didn't care if he was Jewish or if he looked like I did, 'cause all the Winter Soldiers were treated the same way. Like living weapons. I can't tell if he finds comfort in that or not._

_I'm well aware that Hydra didn't follow Hitler's orders. That's why they went rogue. But they got their start as Nazis. They worked for Nazis. They agreed with Nazis. And they committed crimes against humanity alongside the Nazis. _

_When I woke up, they told me we won the war. I had to find out on my own that, actually, we're still fighting it. I had to find out on my own about the internment camps that we set up for Japanese immigrants, and the dropping of two atomic bombs on civilian populations. I had to find out on my own about the Vietnam and Korean wars. I had to find out on my own about the Ku Klux Klan. I had to find out on my own about the Stonewall Riots. I had to find out on my own about Presidents Nixon and Reagan. I had to find out on my own about the AIDS crisis. I had to find out on my own about what happened at Columbine High School. I had to find out on my own about the events of September eleventh, 2001, and the following rise in Islamophobia, along with the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Pakistan, and other countries in Northern Africa. I had to find out on my own about Palestine. And now I'm finding out, along with all of you, about the racism, homophobia, sexism, Islamophobia, antisemitism, and xenophobia that is running rampant from the heart of this country and into its veins._

_Immigration and Customs Enforcement sounds fine on the surface. Make sure bad people can't get into the country. Get rid of the bad people who find their way here anyway. But their definition of "bad people" is skewed. Children are being held in detention centers with no place or materials to bathe or brush their teeth. They're sleeping on cold, concrete floors with no blankets. Their adult companions have to stand for hours or days due to how crowded they are. Babies are drinking from unwashed bottles. They don't have diapers. The lights are on twenty-four hours a day. There are outbreaks of flu, chicken pox, lice, and mites. They aren't allowed to play. They aren't even being taught English. Children as young as nineteen months, and probably younger, are dying from things that can be easily prevented due to negligence, some while still in United States custody. Families are being separated, and they don't know if they're going to see each other again._

_In early August, a man named Jimmy Aldaoud from Detroit, Michigan, died after being deported to Iraq. He was born in Greece to Catholic Iraqi refugees, then brought to America, legally, at the age of six months. He spoke no Arabic and no Kurdish. He was diabetic, and he couldn't get any insulin for himself. He only survived for two months. He struggled with paranoid schizophrenia. He wasn't an evil person. He'd never killed anyone. He was arrested once for breaking and entering and theft, served his sentence, and separately convicted of disorderly conduct. Those convictions led to his deportation, which came with no warning. He wasn't given any of the medication he needed to live. He was killed by our government for crimes he'd already served time for. When I heard about him, I couldn't help but imagine this happening to my mother, Sarah Rogers. She died when I was in my early twenties, but I couldn't shake the picture of her lost, alone, in a country she didn't know. _

_[PAUSE, ROGERS RE-GATHERS HIMSELF AND WIPES HIS EYES. SOMEONE SPEAKS INDISTINCTLY IN THE BACKGROUND. PART OF THE VIDEO HAS BEEN CUT OUT.]_

_I could say more. I could tell you about the blatant sexism in Washington. I could tell you about the children killed in their classrooms, the survivors who live every day with the trauma of watching their peers die, and the kids who are afraid they're gonna wind up dead before they graduate. I could tell you about the people of color killed by police. I could tell you about the Muslim and Jewish people killed in their houses of worship. But I'm not going to, because you probably already know. _

_I'm not gonna tell you what to do. I'm not gonna tell you that this is gonna be an easy fight. I'm not gonna tell you that I know how we should go about this. I'm not even gonna tell you that I'm not afraid. I'm just gonna say that the world has seen this happen before. It's seen nationalism rise to become the top priority of nations. It's seen leaders violate human rights. It's seen targeting a group of marginalized people be used to unite those already in power. It's seen the military reign supreme. It's seen obsession with national security, and with crime and subsequent punishment. It's seen a lack of separation between church and state. It's seen hatred for free thought and the arts. It's seen corporations valued over people. It's seen sexism and corruption. It's seen outright lies. It's seen all of these things in fascist regimes, and I see them now in the country I swore I would protect. I'm gonna say that, if when you read about me when you were in middle school, high school, college, if you wondered what I might think of the state of things, I'm just as pissed as I was when I went off to fight in 1943. If you wondered what you might have done if you were alive back then, stop. Because you can't change the past. None of us can. But you're here now. And maybe you feel like you're too small, too weak to do anything about this mess, but so was I. And it didn't stop me. I know it sounds cheap, but this is history in the making. And I'm just gonna say what I'm gonna do; the exact same thing I did back then. I'm gonna do what my mother always told me. I'm always gonna stand up. Against abuse, against bullies, and against injustice. Always._

_What would you have done back then? 'Cause you're doing it right now._


End file.
